Every week I compile a list of the noteworthy social media news (Buzz), balanced with valuable commentary (Brilliance) and some good advice about Blogging as well. The links that follow are to sites and blogs that I read on a regular basis - consider them recommended reading for you too. Or you can just come back here each week for a taste of what stuck out to me.
~Karen
Buzz
Twitter has been hard at work trying to take the advertising world by storm. And they’re promoting what they’re doing through traditional media. Of course, more and more people are using hashtags outside of the Twitter bubble, so you might find TagsInAction useful for tracking what people are saying elsewhere on the web.
Twitter is doing its best lately to create a unique user experience for each of us - one that is tailored to our interests. This is in Twitter’s best interest as it will get more and more people coming back to use this tool, which is good news for advertisers. Twitter wants increased interactions from its users, which is why they’ve launched expanded tweets as well.
The latest research from ComScore about Facebook advertising must feel so validating for Facebook. To hear that their product works when so many have doubted is nice. I must admit that I notice ads far more on Facebook now than I have before. They’re hoping that Facebook Exchange ads will boost their advertising usefulness even further.
Reddit is serious about spam. So serious, in fact, that they’ve banned certain reputable sites because they were tied to spam activity.
Brilliance
One of the biggest objections to social media is lack of time to produce content. It’s nice to know that there are ways to do so easily and quickly - now get on that!
Do you use ads on Facebook? Do you know if you’re selecting the right options? This article from Social Fresh may help you.
This week Lara and I might have taken some small steps toward podcasting. We’re pretty excited about it, because it’s a growing content stream and even Apple is recognizing that it needs its own home. I think our experience at Podcasters Across Borders last weekend inspired us to get moving on this as we’ve been talking about it for quite some time.
This is one of my favorite posts this week - and I have shared it several times - because it so eloquently lays it out there that automation doesn’t mean a machine is generating content for you. As I said to someone this week, there is still a human behind it, even if I don’t happen to be online at the time it posts.
There’s a lot of talk about authenticity and being real/genuine in social media. The idea is that if people know who you are and what you’re about, they can trust you. It’s an unspoken agreemen; Mitch Joel calls it a contract.
Blogging
Anyone who has ever blogged was new to blogging once. It can seem daunting to get started, but it doesn’t have to be, and there are lots of very experienced bloggers willing to help you.
Do you need blog post ideas? Problogger has a few for you - and this list is evergreen so you can refer to it over and over again.
App of the Week
In honor of my favorite post this week (the one about automation by Jason Falls), I am going to nominate Buffer as my pick for this week. It beats Hootsuite by a landslide for ease of scheduling and allows you to link to your bit.ly account for additional metric tracking. You can customize the times to tweet/post updates so that your feed isn’t overwhelmed. I have to say, though, the times selected automatically by Buffer were right on for me.